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25-foot-long metal beam drops into Reactor No. 3 pool at Fukushima — Not clear if any fuel rods have broken — Could further complicate removal efforts. Just in case you might be thinking TEPCO had this still ongoing, potential nuclear cataclysm under control.. Fuck, man.. Enenews:
From EXSKF:
TEPCO announced on September 22 that a steel frame weighing about 470 kilograms dropped into the Spent Fuel Pool of Reactor 3 during the debris removal operation of the Reactor 3 building [...] So far, there is no major increase in radiation levels nearby, TEPCO says.
According to TEPCO, the accident happened at 11:05AM on September 22 when [EXSKF: the crane operator] tried to grab a piece of debris, an H steel lying next to the Spent Fuel Pool on the 5th floor of Reactor 3 building and failed. The H steel slid into the Spent Fuel Pool.
From Russia Today News Line:
A huge metal beam was dropped into a spent fuel pond at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. Workers were trying to extract cement wreckage [...] The crane boom accidentally pushed a metal beam into the pool from its casing, reports ITAR-TASS news agency. [Tepco] says the metal construction, 7.3 meters [~25 feet] in length and weighing 470kg, did not cause any breach in the cooling system, but could complicate further retrieve of spent nuclear rods.
From The Voice of Russia:
Reports say it was accidentally dislodged from its place by a crane.
Fortunately, no one was hurt in the incident. It is not yet clear whether any of the spent rods has been broken.
Barring any significant damage other than a massive explosion or an event they can't hide, TEPCO won't tell us for at least another six months. That seems to be Standard Operating Procedure for these knuckleheads, even before the earthquake..
He's right: It's CRAZY to be worried about an ongoing catastrophe/potential Extinction Level Event. Crazy, I tells ya.. Reuters, via ENEWS:
The new head of the company at the centre of Japan’s nuclear disaster said on Thursday he was baffled by fierce criticism of the firm where he has worked nearly 40 years and hoped to rebuild public trust but offered no clear idea how to do so.
[...]
At one of the meetings, a moderate earthquake struck and he was quickly peppered with questions about the safety of a badly damaged building at Fukushima full of spent fuel rods.
That was “quite a shock for us,” [President of Tepco Naomi Hirose] said, because the company assumed its reinforcement work has been sufficient.
Fukushima’s spent fuel pool No. 4 has been a source of international concern because they are exposed to the atmosphere after one of the explosions that hit the station tore the reactor building roof off and caused its walls to tilt.
[...]
His attitude is very comforting, in a clueless rich guy who makes a disaster scenario oh so much worse kinda way, don't you think? I can't wait for his public reaction when the inevitable happens: GUUUUHHHHH?? Wuuuuuhhh? Howdathappen?
If we have yet to invent technologies that can effectively demolish, decontaminate, and contain nuclear disasters, shouldn't we admit that nuclear power is beyond our scope of control? Accordingly, shouldn't we be working on those technologies before we build any more reactors or utilize this Pandora's Box of death? Don't forget: It's all done to boil water. Terra Daily, via The Extinction Protocol:
June 28, 2012 – JAPAN – TEPCO, the operator of Japan’s crippled Fukushima nuclear plant, said Wednesday record amounts of radiation had been detected in the basement of reactor number 1, further hampering clean-up operations. TEPCO took samples from the basement after lowering a camera and surveying instruments through a drain hole in the basement ceiling. Radiation levels above radioactive water in the basement reached up to 10,300 millisievert an hour, a dose that will kill humans within a short time after making them sick within minutes. The annual allowed dose for workers at the stricken site is reached in only 20 seconds. “Workers cannot enter the site and we must use robots for the demolition,” said TEPCO. The Fukushima operator said that radiation levels were 10 times higher than those recorded at the plant’s two other crippled reactors, number two and three. This was due to the poor state of the nuclear fuel in the reactor compared to that in the two others. The meltdown at the core of three of Fukushima’s six reactors occurred after the March 11, 2011 earthquake and ensuing massive tsunami shut off the power supply and cooling system. Demolition of the three reactors as well as the plant’s number 4 unit is expected to take 40 years and will need the use of new technologies. (As yet un-invented technologies..)
40 years? Do you really think we have that much time? I doubt it.. All to boil water..
EX-SKF. Click the link and check out the pictures, now over a year into this bullshit. As the article says, "It's so slow that nothing seems to have been happening."
If we live long enough to write about this in future history books, I wonder how TEPCO's unfailing ineptitude will be treated. Hopefully, harshly, but without the sentence, "By the time the world became fed up with TEPCO and Japan's incompetence handling this global nuclear crisis, it was too late; the damage was done." And yet, I know it's already too late..
From the Daily Mail. Excerpts:
Televisions, fridges and furniture pieces are heading for Hawaii, as a huge amount of debris from Japan’s earthquake sails across the Pacific.
Up to 20 million tons of debris from the earthquake in March is traveling faster than expected and could reach the U.S. West Coast in three years.
A Russian ship’s crew spotted the debris - which included a 20ft long fishing boat - last month after passing the Midway Islands.
This is also the path that all the radioactive waste water TEPCO has been releasing into the ocean will travel. So we've got that to look forward to, which is nice.. But by then, I'm sure it won't matter..
Or then again, maybe not. There seems to be some confusion (still) regarding the identity of the Fukushima Mystery Man, who appeared on a live cam August 28th. As I posted Tuesday, it seemed to be Enson Inoue, after he admitted to going up to the reactor site at Fukushima, but now, another man has come forward to claim credit. Ex-SKF. Excerpts:
Some of you may have read about and seen the video/screenshot of a mysterious worker who appeared in TEPCO's Livecam of Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant.
Well, he's gone semi-public with his email to a high ranking administration official on September 8, protesting the harsh working conditions for the workers, and he has posted his statement and photographs inside the plant on his website:
http://pointatfuku1cam.nobody.jp/e.html
Mystery solved. Maybe. A poster replies to the Ex-SKF link with this.. "Anonymous said...
there is a second man said to be him - this one has a name...
when i posted the fuku1live-video at my youtube channel a few days later somebody commented:
‘the man in this video is an mma fighter, fix the link below and read the article
mmafighting.[com]/2011/09/04/enson-inoue-takes-covert-trip-to-fukushima-nuclear-power-plant/
he went there to feed stay dogs and volunteer in a hospital’
his name is Enson Inoue.
you will have to search this name there, as the page opens not directly.
i actually believe this is true. he is holding his arm horizontally for about 20 minutes, try yourself to do it longer than one ;-)"
He's right: That's difficult, and requires A Lot of strength. After watching some of Inoue's video diaries, he looks a little bigger (more muscular)than the man in the suit. I'm not saying that it's not him, what I'm saying is that my opinion has shifted bact to "undecided." Not that it really matters.
Inoue got attention for his work and website, and this still unknown man got attention for his grievances regarding TEPCO's operational policies. Looks like everything turned out great! Except for that whole Fukushima thing, ya know..
Japan: Strong earthquake rattles tsunami-weary Japan From Before It's News.
A strong earthquake with a magnitude of 7.3 hit Japan‘s northeastern coast on Sunday, prompting a brief tsunami warning for the area still recovering from a devastating quake and killer wave four months ago.
Residents in coastal areas were warned to evacuate for about two hours after the quake, but there were no immediate reports of damage.
And:
Sunday’s quake registered 4 on the Japanese scale of 7, meaning it was felt as moderately strong. Because of the damage from the March quake and tsunami, however, many buildings in the area are structurally weak and seawalls have been destroyed, making the region more vulnerable to relatively weaker quakes.
Scandal: Japan Arrests People For Collecting Radioactive Rubble While Claiming No Radiation In The Area
Before It's News. Excerpts:
As Japan insisted Fukushima was not leaking radiation into the surrounding environment in March, the government was arresting people over 60 kilometers from Fukushima for collecting radioactive rubble without a license, claiming the collection of radioactive material violated the Waste Disposal and Public Cleansing Law.
According to the Government of Japan and TEPCO, as of March 26th they official story was there was the pressure vessels at the Fukushima nuclear reactor were still intact and radiation was not leaking into the environment.
..
Yet while assuring the public radiation was not leaking into the environment, the Government of Japan was busy arresting citizens who were collecting radioactive rubble over 60 kilometer from the Fukushima Nuclear plant.
It would have been nice had they used all that energy towards a dumb ass cover up and directed it towards containment and cleanup. But they were trying to protect their Bottom Line, which has since gone away. TEPCO has to stay alive to pay damages to.. essentially everyone in Japan(By the time this bullshit wraps up!), but how can it stay afloat without nationalization?
If anyone is left to read them, there's like.. twenty thousand books about The Earthquake and Nuclear Nightmare just dying to be written..
#Fukushima I Nuke Plant Reactor 3: Humans Entered Reactor Bldg and Did What Bots Couldn't Do From Ex-SKF via Rense. Does this sound like anything close to "contained" to you?
TEPCO seems to be in a great hurry to start the nitrogen injection into the Containment Vessel of the Reactor 3. At first I thought it was just a window-dressing effort for the national government who had decided, on some inexplicable reason or unreason, it would be safe enough for people to come back to their homes in the planned evacuation zone as long as the nitrogen gas was pumped into the Reactor 3 Containment Vessel, just so that the government could tell the citizens "See what we've done for you? It's now so much safer you can go back!"
Or, the Reactor 3 is actually in danger of blowing up in a hydrogen explosion.
They have hardly done any work on other reactors. The Reactor 1's basement water, last seen as gushing out 4 sieverts/hour steam through to the 1st floor, hasn't been touched. That water doesn't even go to the water treatment system. I haven't heard any news of TEPCO sampling the water for analysis. There's hardly any news on the Reactor 2, after they opened the double door and supposedly drove out the radioactive materials and moisture inside. They still don't know the water level (if any) inside the Reactor 2's Pressure Vessel, because the pressure gauge and water gauge don't work. As for the Reactor 4, they've been injecting water into the Reactor well and the equipment pool from the bottom of the Reactor Pressure Vessel, which seems peculiar. Other than that, and the photo of a hot-spring-like Spent Fuel Pool on the 5th floor, there's not much information coming out.
Govt., TEPCO draw roadmap to reactor decommission Story/Video courtesy of NHK World...
A roadmap toward decommissioning of the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant indicates that the removal of melted nuclear fuel rods at the plant may begin in 10 years.
NHK has obtained the mid- and long-term roadmap which was presented when officials from the operator of the Fukushima plant, government officials in charge of nuclear safety, and manufacturers of nuclear reactors met last week.
..
The work is considered to be the most important phase in the decommissioning process. The roadmap indicates that removal will start in 2021 if technology essential for the work has been developed before that.
If not, then the timeline pushes back. At the earliest, the containment process ends in ten years.
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